


Your Back's The One I Got

by toewsyourheart



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Brief Kazer Mention, Established Relationship, Flames Game, Hockey Marrieds, M/M, Scrums, Teasing, Understated Affection, idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toewsyourheart/pseuds/toewsyourheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And Tazer hopped to for ya tonight, so I didn’t have to. ‘M gettin’ too old for that shit," Duncs says. </p><p>“Yeah yeah, I know—”</p><p>“But I woulda though,” he interjects quickly. </p><p>Brent knows that, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Back's The One I Got

**Author's Note:**

> (*disclaimer* while they are featured here, neither jonny nor patrick speak any words in this fic. i tagged their pairing mostly to weed out the anti's, if you know what i mean.)

“Here we go, white!” Brent hollers, blinking back to the moment as he stands, prepared to take the ice. 

It’s just a thing he says. 

He doesn’t care for the word ‘superstition’ and doesn’t really like to be classified as such, either. Nobody in the locker room calls him that. To his face, anyway. 

They’ve all got respect for the things he does, even if they do get a few chuckles in here and there when they explain it to newcomers on the team. 

“It’s just, somethin’ he does,” he’ll hear someone say, when he’s in the zone, ignoring everyone and waiting to go out, a shrug and an amused grin clear in their voice. 

The word ‘superstition’ makes it sound bad, that he’s got a routine, things he says and does. Everybody in the league’s got ‘em, though. Whatever it takes to get you ready to play, helps you slide into that mindset, is what you should do. That’s Brent’s thinking, anyway. 

So he does ‘em. Every time. 

It’s not bad. It’s just what he does. 

* 

Brent doesn’t see the whack Duncs takes at Gaudreau from his place on the bench because the angle’s shit, but the kid folds right up like it did damage and skates off, so he assumes it was vicious. 

Brent looks up to see the replay after the whistle—yep, a slash straight to the elbow—and shakes his head to himself. He figured something like that was coming, after Duncs took a drilling from Freddie Hamilton in the corner. Brent doesn’t always know exactly, because Duncs is unpredictable in doling out revenge—sometimes he lets it roll off his back, others he rages out—but somehow he knew this time. Just a feeling he had. 

It takes a few changes before they’re next to each other on the bench, but he hasn’t forgotten. 

“Ought to say sorry to the kid next time out, eh?” Brent huffs without looking at him, eyes following the puck around the boards. 

“Huh?” 

Duncs likes playing dumb when he’s getting in trouble. He probably thought since there was no penalty, there’d be no supplemental discipline, so to speak. Wrong. 

“The kid, Gaudreau,” Brent clarifies, then yells something to TVR out on the ice before giving Duncs his attention again. Brent knocks their thighs together, to let him know he has it. 

“You suggestin’ or tellin’?” he mumbles, breathless in a way that seems unstrained, like Duncs always is. 

Brent whacks him hard in the chest, mischievous grin in place as he hops over for his next shift, pointing a glove at him. “Tellin’.” 

He chuckles when Duncs roars gruffly from behind, “Not the boss of me!” louder with each word. 

It’s funny, because Brent _is_ the boss of him, and he likes it, too, the contrary bastard. 

* 

Brent heaves himself up off the ice, adjusts his bucket by the stupid visor he still hates, watching as Tazer goes to town trying to put Dougie Hamilton in a headlock. 

It’s unnecessary, but he still appreciates the effort, even if they will have to kill off a four-on-three after this. Tazer’s heart’s in the right place. Always is. 

Brent feels Duncs’s eyes on him before he meets his stare through the commotion. He doesn’t look overly concerned, just slightly murderous and focused, which is normal. They don’t do that, freak out about each other out here. They’ve been at this for too damn long to get worked up over every bump, bruise, and knock to the ice. 

Brent gives him a terse nod; the only sign Duncs needs to know it’s not serious, the sign he’s waiting for. Duncs nods back, and that’s that. 

* 

They kill all the penalties, even the helpful additions from Shawzy, and get the win in regulation.

Good shit. 

Back in the locker room, Brent does more stuff that he always does, going around to give everyone pats and noogies. It’s a win or lose thing, but it’s always a better time with the two points. 

He pointedly skips Duncs, because you don’t get noogies when you assault kids, even if he did apologize like Brent told him to. 

Duncs doesn’t need ‘em, anyway. Brent always thinks he did good. 

He doesn’t have to say it anymore. 

*

“Ol’ Dougie gave you a rough ride, eh?” Duncs teases, saying Dougie’s name like the joke that it is, and nudges Brent’s shoulder as they walk to the charter.

“Ya, and Freddie gave you one,” Brent returns easily, bumping him back a little harder, using more of his weight, so Duncs stumbles a step. Brent catches him by the elbow to keep him from toppling over. Can’t let him get too big for his britches, but Brent can’t let him go hitting the pavement, either. He’d just have to listen to him whine about it for hours, maybe days. 

“I s’pose he did,” Duncs grumbles reluctantly. “Fuckin’ Hamiltons.” Brent doesn’t have to see his accompanying eye roll to know it happened. Just another feeling he had, after years and years of this. Duncs’s a tough nut to crack, but once it’s done, he’s easy. Brent could probably write the book on him better than Duncs could himself. Self-awareness ain’t his strongest personality trait. 

“Shoulda asked ‘em both to meet us in the back lot to duke it out, yeah?” Duncs says, shuffling around to walk backwards in front of him, bouncing from foot to foot with his fists up like a boxer, like an idiot.

“Yeah, I hear ya, tough guy,” Brent smiles, reaching out to smack at his hands. Duncs’s always been good at that, pulling laughs from him whenever; Brent guesses that’s why he keeps him around—that, and some other stuff best kept behind closed doors. 

“You can catch these hands, but you won’t hear ‘em—silent killers,” Duncs mutters, and Brent plays along, ‘oomph’-ing theatrically when Duncs closes in and fake-socks him in the stomach. Brent grabs him around the neck in retaliation, and then, because they’re adults, he stuffs Duncs’s head into his armpit and makes him hobble sideways like that until they get to the foot of the plane before letting him go. 

“Hope you woulda put up a better showing against the Hamiltons,” Brent jokes, and Duncs levels him with an incredulous stare, quirking his eyebrow as he adjusts his hat where Brent knocked it crooked. He lets Brent get away with a whole world of shit he wouldn’t take lying down from others, Brent knows. Duncs could probably handle the Hamiltons two-on-one, if he had to. The two of them have had a couple full-out brawls in their day, and Brent’s way bigger, yeah, but Duncs…he’s feisty, quick as lightning, and a little nuts. 

“Okay, okay, yeah,” Brent backpedals, much to Duncs’s obvious satisfaction.

“That’s what I thought,” he replies wickedly, ambling up the stairs, Brent right on his heels.

 

They make their way down the aisle, and Brent means to stop and say something extra to the Captain for sticking up for him tonight, but Tazer’s already settled, head so far up Kaner’s ass there’s no way his words would penetrate that thick skull of his. 

Brent chuckles to himself as he and Duncs slide into their row; they’re sharing a blanket over there, for god’s sake. 

“We were never like that, eh?” he wonders aloud, and Duncs barely looks up from his phone, preoccupied with some stupid game. 

“Like huh?”

“Tazer and Kaner,” Brent specifies. He can literally hear them from here, speaking in hushed tones, having a lovers’ quarrel over movie choices. 

Duncs laughs once, hard, puts his shoulders into it and everything, which means he’s really amused. “Not hardly.” 

“’Cuz we’ve got some dignity and discretion about us,” Brent adds, squeezing Duncs’s thigh in a modest display of affection, because he can. 

“Don’t shame the lovebirds. They’re new at it,” Duncs points out, patting Brent’s hand where it rests before going back to his game. “And Tazer hopped to for ya tonight, so I didn’t have to. ‘M gettin’ too old for that shit.” 

“Yeah yeah—” 

“But I woulda,” Duncs interjects quickly with a point, then grazes his knuckle through Brent’s neck beard. 

“I know, ‘cuz you both just love me so much. Standin’ in line to defend my honor,” Brent teases, scrubbing his face against his shoulder. That shit tickled.  
  
“I’m first, though,” Duncs says seriously, always weirdly competitive about Brent’s affections. 

“Yeah, I reckon you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do not ask me what compelled me to write this, because I do not know. Just hoping I appropriately captured their weirdness. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr @ [toewsme1988](http://toewsme1988.tumblr.com).


End file.
